Roberts Malaise

Over at Salon, Michael Scherer discusses why all the left-leaning groups that promised to come to fisticuffs over Bush's Supreme Court Nominee have thus far kept quiet. It seems like Grover Norquist has a pretty good explanation, or at least one that credits the opposition with some strategic thinking: people are saving up their bile (and credibility) for either the September hearings, or else for whomever Bush might nominate next.

But the most important factor may be that John Roberts doesn't present a lot to throw mud at. Sure, he's argued the conservative line on abortion and tons of corporate issues, but since he was just fronting for clients the assumption is that those cases don't really tell us what he thinks. The senior counsel at the liberal Alliance for Justice, which spent all spring gearing up for a fight, runs the numbers on Robert's brief months on the D.C. Circuit Court:

"As a judge he has sat on 400 cases," says Shah. "He has only written 44 of those. And only five of them are cases in which one of the judges disagreed."